


What's in a name

by Myu



Series: Little one shot about Dragon Age [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-19 03:25:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5951953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myu/pseuds/Myu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A name can be anything, an insult, a praise, or a simple designation. </p>
<p>So what is a name?</p>
<p>Champion, bastard, son, Hawke, mage, apostate... Maleficarum.  </p>
<p>..Sometimes, he fears he'll forget his given name... If only he didn't have the impression that other didn't see farther than those titles....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

In the darkness of the night, he says his name.

 

_(In the darkness of the night, there is only himself, him and the nightmare)_

 

Like a prayer, like he might forget it, like he might forget who he is.

 

_( He already did, once, twice, more times than he can count...)_

 

No one calls him by this name... not anymore. His father called him by his first name. But since that time, those times when he was a child, when he wasn't expected to be a man, to be the head of his family, to protect his family... there was a time when he was more himself than just a mage, a bastard, an apostate, more than just Hawke the guy to whom everybody goes when something goes wrong.

 

_( There was a time, he **was**.)_

 

Now… not even his mother calls him by his name. He is son, he is her last child, he is her worst child... the one she might have wanted to die instead of his sister and the one she might have supported the departure instead of young Carver... But he stayed. He fought. He lived. He tried to make a name for himself, tried to make some friends... But even there, there is nothing…

 

He's called Hawke, he's a nobleman, he's a man who is strong enough for everything, a man who can never flinch from duty, who can never fail... and that might be the worst...

 

He came to peace with his mother since Carver left, and he and his mother both left the blame at his feet... He knows he can never be the man his mother wanted him to be. He knows he failed his father... And now… now his friends never call his name. Does he even has friends? Sometimes he wonders... he never called them by their family name nor their title... so how come for him it is different... He's tired... and the qunari problem doesn't seem to have a solution.

 

He fears for his life, for his mother life, for his friends. But most of all he fears he will be alone in the end if this goes south.

 

_(He always fears, and no one see, he is the one that must do the reassuring, when all he wants is to be reassured, protected, for once...)_

 

\-------

 

 

Well... now he doesn't have to fear for the life of his mother. She's dead. She's dead and in the last moment she didn't even call him by his name. He knew she could be cruel. He didn't thought it would be like that. Yes he lost her. But the term of endearment from her mouth was like a slap in the face. He hadn't been the son she wanted, he hadn't been what he had promised... she was cruel, so cruel in the end, in death... But did she have to notice the worst thing? The thing he was trying so hard not to think about.

 

"you'll be alone."

 

He knows that. He knew that even before she left him. Because for a long time now he has been deluding himself in thinking he had friends and he could count on them, he had thought for so long that his little group of friends could be a new family...

 

And it wasn't.

 

It took him some times after her death to be again what the world wanted him to be. He spent some time just looking at the walls. He know he frightened bodham and orana. For a time he didn't move from his seat in front of the fire, just letting time pass, unable to remember if he ate or slept, if people were here or not. He took some time to adorn the mask of the Hawke everyone needed, knew, wanted him to be.

 

_(He destroyed a room in a fit of rage against his life, his friends, those fucking things that didn't stop happening. )_

 

But when he came back. It was as if nothing had changed for his friends, as if everything was the same. He was Hawke. Called by the viscount to take care of the qunari problem.

 

And what a problem it was. Everything he feared happened.

 

Isabela might have not held a knife but the hit in the back almost left him crippled. And shit hit the fan faster than his mind could comprehend. Kirkwall was in flames. And it seemed like people depended on him to save them.

 

And so he did his best.

 

He confronted the Arishok, he protected his friends, never sold Isabella out even if he wanted to. And Fenris arranged a duel between the Arishok and him. Between that qunari, stronger, taller, less exhausted than him, and this little mage, this man that was exhausted, that could barely stomach the thought that this might mean his death.

 

He was terrified.

 

This duel seemed already decided. And his friends were only looking on.

 

Like he wasn't already hurt, exhausted, terrified. Like the Hawke in front of their eyes wasn't a man who could fail like them. He didn't have a choice but to control his terror, to control his trembling hands, and to fight.

 

The duel was almost one sided. He was fighting with all he had, his magic, his hands, his teeth. There was no honor. And when the sword pierced his side, when the Arishok impaled him, and raised his body, he cried out, he went dizzy, he felt tears escaping his eyes.

 

_(And blood, so much blood, he needed that blood in his body, not on the gleaming metal of that sword, but he could do with that much blood, he could be something more, something worse. He could do Magic, even the forbidden kind, if only to keep living)_

But the duel came to an end. And Hawke won.

 

He became the Champion of Kirkwall. A champion didn't need a healer, didn't need help.... Wasn't that ironic? He won a duel against a qunari, almost dying, he thought that maybe, maybe his friend would stop seeing what they thought he was, and started to see how broken he was coming to be... and yet. He had to heal himself. He had to deal with the absence of the viscount with the growing tensions between mages and Templars.

 

Three years passed. And he felt as alone as when his mother died.


	2. Chapter 2

He was an observer.  
  
He was a dwarf, he was a liar, he was a story teller. He was a rogue, a master spy... and yet.  
  
Yet he didn't see what was so obvious at the time...  
  
He thought, not for the first time, that the others could be ridiculous.  And he had thought they would react, he had thought that the mage with his puppy crush would be there, that maybe the former slave would be sufficiently grateful toward Hawke to make sure he would support him...  
  
And yet...  
  
And yet, after so many years of them being in cohort, drinking, saving each other lives, he could see what he missed.  
  
What he hadn't seen when they got out of the deep road, what he had missed when Serah Hawke died. What he couldn't see when Isabella left, and with her a part of what was making him trust them.  
  
And what he thought was a mirage when he became the champion of Kirkwall...  
  
But they became more and more frequent. Those moments when Hawke wasn't himself. Oh he was nice, don't misunderstand, he was his usual sarcastic self, but it was as if there was something less to him, or maybe it was like a barrier of some sort was being built in front of their unsuspecting eyes?  
  
Isabella came back, not even sorry, but Hawke acted as if everything was alright, everything was good, even if he wouldn't bring the rivaini with him, even if in the Hanged Man, he did everything to have her in his vision...  
  
Even if, the dwarf could see how much Hawke didn't, couldn't bring himself to trust her as he had. She had, by leaving, destroyed something that Varric was only beginning to discover. Something essential, that made Hawke himself...  
  
It took a while for Varric to realize what the problem was with the mage, what was bothering him each time he saw him.  
  
And when he understood, he feared it was almost too late.  
  
Three years after Leandra's death, three years after the death of the Arishok, Varric began to know, to see.  
  
He remembered all the times when something said by Hawke disturbed him...  
  
_("They need a champion? Well no choice then"_

_" why don't they tell me... oh right, the champion..."_

_"Oh that's right, I'm the only Hawke left.. there is no need to distinct between which one now...”_

_"Carver left to be a Templar, maybe he is right to fear that the mage he knows will one_ _day become the monster he has always seen?")_

All those little things that, when thinking them over, frightened Varric.

All those little things that, today, made everything worse.  
  
He had come to Hawke, to grab a beer initially.  But what he found then...  
  
A husk of the Hawke he had known. The man hadn't moved from his seat in front of the unlit foyer, looking into the void, he looked unkempt, and his hand were bleeding with the scratching the man was doing.  
  
An awful thought came to mind. When did he see Hawke last? When did the mage leave his house last?  
  
"Hawke? You alright?"  
  
Only silence, a long and frightening silence. And then the head of the mage turned slowly in his direction, and what Varric saw was worse.  
  
His eyes were dead, or not, maybe just not there, but that may be worse. How do you make someone come back from his own mind? Especially a mage?  
  
Calling his name again didn't seem to work much better than the first time.  And Varric worried. Worried that this might be a common occurrence, that Bodham and Orana saw this Hawke more than they saw the other facets of the man. Worried that he had been as blind as all the others to not see this man becoming like that.  
  
Putting his hand over the bloody hands of the mage, he took the time to draw a breath. No reaction. Then he thought of this name he didn't use, because it seemed sacred, because he didn't feel worthy of using it, because his family was the cause of a betrayal... a last attempt...  
  
"Come on, Garrett. .."  
  
It was so sudden, as if the man in front of him suddenly came to life, his hands gripping his with force and his eyes searching frantically for the face of the dwarf. And then he heard it, like the whisper of a ghost.  
  
" _My name_ say it... again... please" a desperate prayer. One that the storyteller didn't really understand, but complied to eagerly. Anything to get back the man he decided to follow.  
  
"Garrett?"  
  
The second time, again, the man in front of him came alive. Shuddering, head bowing like under an invisible weight, shoulders sagging, something cold and wet fell on their jointed hands.

Something was wrong. And no one in their little group noticed, because it would have been brought up, discussed, and a solution would have been thought of.

Varric had some people to talk to... with Bianca.  
  
The giant of a man, the champion of Kirkwall, the mage who didn't seem to fear anything, always sarcastic and humorous in the time of danger, came undone before the eyes of the rogue. Heaving, crying, shaking with each strong expiration...  
  
Varric waited, patiently, his hand never leaving the trembling one of the other. His thought partially occupied to understanding what happened, what was still happening...  
  
He swore that day to pay more attention to his friend, make sure to be there for him still....and make sure the others heard of the anger of a dwarf.  
  
And the man, the hero in front of him, was only human, was as broken by life as any other...

\------  
  
The oath he took that night would be somewhat useless in a few months... or maybe it was because of that oath that things went like they had?  
  
He was here when Hawke broke, and he put him together, and when they went their way, the dwarf made sure to protect the mage who suffered so much. And alright, he could admit it: he kind of fucked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey: update! isn't that great?  
> (yeah, it's still some angst, but it should be better soon, I hope èé)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a first post, there will be more, and i will come back to arrange this, like, the orthographe, the formulation, the grammar


End file.
